The Biographies of Rechungpa: The Evolution of a Tibetan ...

Introduction 5
that these four should be seen, respectively, as doctor, patient, medicine and treatment, an
analogy still widely used in Tibetan teachings to this day, even though its source in the
sūtras is usually not known. It is a common saying in Tibet that the commentaries are
more important than the original sūtras, which are used principally as objects for
devotion. Therefore it is not unusual for a teacher of the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra to have
never read this section of the Gandhavyuha-sūtra. In fact, even Prajñakaramati, who is
regarded as the principal Indian commentator on the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra, appears to
forget Śrī Mati in stating that the teachings in this section were given by Śrī
alone. Tibetan readers assumed that The Liberation of Glorious Sambhava was an actual
title and that it refers to a biography. This misunderstanding continues, as evidenced in
the recent free translation of the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra by the Padmakara translation
group
For thus you must depend upon your guru
As you will find described in Shrī Sambhava’s life.
This section of the sūtra does not in fact contain a biography of either Sambhava or Mati.
What then does mean in Śantideva’s phrase Śrī- The
compound is used throughout this sūtra to describe the practices,
each of which has a specific name, through which Sudhana’s teachers gained their
liberation, and which they teach to Sudhana who then practices them. For example, in the
fifteenth chapter, a goddess teaches Sudhana the called ‘the entry
into manifestations and beautiful sounds’ (sgra yid-du-’ong-ba dang rnam-par-’phrul-ba
zab-mo la ‘jug-pa). 15 This use of the term namthar or ‘liberation’ is still to be found in
the early Kagyu. Gampopa’s nephew and successor, Gomtsul (sGom-tshul), compiled
Gampopa’s general lectures into a text named A Garland of Pearls: Dharma Lectures
(Tshogs-chos Mu-tig gi Phreng-ba). 16 In its colophon, which describes how faithful and
reliable this collection is, Gomtsul states that these teachings have not been mixed with
other ‘liberations’ (rnam thar gzhan dang ma ‘dres par…), that is, methods for the
attainment of liberation. 17
In the and Mati section of the Gandhavyuha Sūtra, the term
occurs three times in its opening passages, where the two teachers describe a
that is named mayāgata: the realisation that everything is an
illusion. Sambhava and Mati state that they themselves learned and mastered it. As
Sudhana receives from all his fifty-three teachers, it would be
natural for Santideva or other Indian authors to refer to each section as the of
such and such a teacher.
Kadampa scholars memorised the Tibetan translation of the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra in
its entirety, and as ‘the liberation of Sambhava’ is one of the few texts mentioned in the
Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra it became a well-known title that was assumed to be a
biography. It could be argued that as the practice and realisation of the was the